First things first, why is it important to you that you keep your identity top secret? We won’t spill.

To be honest, it wasn’t really intentional to begin with, but as the persona took off a big part of the fun came from people speculating about who I am. I think people like imagining Mr. Messina as whoever they want to imagine. Once you reveal yourself you can never get that anonymity back.

Tell me about your current job and your career so far!

For the sake of my anonymity I’ll keep my title anon but in general I work on a lot of things at Messina. I cover socials by myself (except TikTok) which includes community management, copywriting and content creation (photo + video). I do all our digital design work from EDMs & web dev + design to packaging, glue ups and merch. I also fell into doing IT support as my bachelor’s degree is in IT. It seems like a lot but I genuinely enjoy having something new to do every week and learning new skills keeps the job exciting.

Gelato Messina’s social presence, in particular its tone of voice, is pretty different to most other brands in the F&B space, can you walk us through your approach?

Messina has ALWAYS had a unique tone and social presence, even from its earliest iterations when Declan [Lee] (one of the owners) used to run our accounts. This is what built the platform and allowed me to launch Mr. Messina in the first place. I think I just do the same thing as those who ran the account before I took over which is to be authentic and relatable by leaning into my own personality.

I think if you can get people to connect with your socials on a personal level by simply being personable, they become advocates of the page and in turn, advocates of your brand. They share it with their friends, they follow you and they’re in the Messina pipeline because they want to be. THEN they start seeing the yummy gelato, our dairy farm, our limited-edition drops and all the things that make our company so unique. It’s just breadcrumbing rather than forcing advertisements down people’s throats. 

And I’m not saying by any means that I am some visionary here, I think heaps of brands and celebs have realised this over the last five years and it’s why we’ve seen the rise of Wendys, Duolingo and so many other “social media interns” creating content around a persona.

Was the Gelato Messina brand persona prescribed to you, or did you develop and launch its current iteration?

It didn’t really come from a planned place, one day I just started being a bit “sassy” on stories and people were eating it up. So I rolled with it and leant into my own personality and coined the term Mr. Messina (it’s on our stories highlights here). There was no pitch! I’m very lucky to have management and a team that trusts my intuition and knowledge in the space and to be working for a company with a social presence that was already established as left of field before I began. Also, the engagement increase and sheer word of mouth from when I started pretty much sold the concept by itself. But don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely made a few mistakes and taken things a bit too far which gets discussed and I always try my best to learn from these situations.

You were quick to Threads, what was your approach going in? How did you find the process of ‘getting comfy’ on the platform? How do you feel about the platform and your place on it now?

As an avid personal Twitter user, Threads immediately felt comfy for me. It rewarded wit, humour and culture and made video + photos an afterthought which was pretty much exactly how I used stories anyway. I think this combined with “being first” was the key to kicking off on there. Not overthinking your posts and casting the net wide (posting/replying a lot) while still maintaining quality was crucial as 100M people were flooding to an app where everyone was competing for a spot in the algorithm.

As for where the app is now, well I think it’s quite clearly died off a lot because like many trends nowadays things burn SO bright and SO quickly because our attention spans are all fried – there’s always a new thing to move on to. However, thanks to Elon I genuinely think with the slow demise of Twitter (I refuse to call it “X” lol) Threads may end up taking over. There is clearly a place for a micro-blog social media platform and I for one would much rather use Threads but I guess time will tell.

Asking for all social media managers out there, how the hell do approvals work? And how did you talk everyone into going AWOL?

Haha, there basically are none! It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? If I do go a bit too far though we always discuss it and I reflect on it for next time. Also, the 1000% engagement increase in the first week that I did it really helped sell the concept!

What do you think is the worst thing a brand can do on Threads at the moment?

Trying to get people to click out to articles or posting vague engagement bait ie. “Are you a morning showerer or a night showerer?! Comment below!!” Encouraging normal discussions by posting your opinion on Threads/Twitter is so much better even if it means less ad revenue from your site in the short term. 

How about Instagram?

Probably not the worst but more of a controversial take… I think (and I say this as someone with 20k worth of camera gear in my office) professional level videos have no place on Reels. I feel like in most circumstances people immediately switch off to it because it feels “advertisey” because it’s in a space where lo-fi memes and 18-year-olds making shaky phone videos thrive.

What kinds of people do you think make the best social managers?

For me the most important thing is people that are in tune with internet culture, memes, trends etc. It’s almost like its own language and it’s how the most active people on the internet communicate.

It’s like trying to go to Italy and only knowing 10 words of Italian and claiming you’re a local, it just doesn’t work. So unfortunately my main tip if you want to be less cringe is spend more time on social media.

What’s your process for planning content across each platform, how far ahead are you thinking?

This is where I fall down big time haha. I have an amazing marketing team that I work with who helps keep me in check. We work together on scheduling and usually have a rough guide on what’s going out over the next 3-4 months (like our big drops, collabs etc) but as for my stories and Threads it’s completely off the cuff and usually rolls off UGC or customer comments/DMs.

Have there been any jokes or content plays that you’ve wanted to make but haven’t been able to?

Ah probably thousands of times where I’ve restrained myself from roasting someone or letting my emotions get too involved. But I’m very glad that I can give it back to some aggressive or rude trolls every now and then.

Do you have an all-time favourite post or interaction online?

My memory is so atrocious (probably because of my ridiculous screentime per day) but I loved doing the eyes vs legs debate on our stories which you can see here OR when I did Messina matchmaking and had over 1000 thousand people submit a form with questions I made up in hopes of matching them based on their interests. I think I tee’d up like 10 + dates but I don’t know if any ever ended up together.

Are you working towards any goals or KPIs for Gelato Messina’s accounts?

Nothing particularly. We don’t ever really chase engagement or followers but I would love to one day get our YouTube up to scratch. I think there is so much incredible content to be shared from our HQ in Marrickville, our dairy farm, and our stores that is just waiting to be told and I’d love to eventually hire someone who has an incredible YouTube personality who could be the face of that platform.

If you weren’t a SMM what would you be doing?

I do lots of jobs already but If I had to pick one path I would likely be a graphic designer as I do a lot of freelance design outside of Messina. I used to do freelance video and photo in the F&B industry but I lost my passion for it over time.

Bonus Q: Any chance you’ll be bringing back Cone Flakes?

Omg I can’t believe you remember them, I designed that box (I look back on it now and cringe) but yes, I think now you’ve asked, we 100% need to, they were epic!